And so we are in lesson 11. We're gonna read John 18 verses one through 14. This is, of course, as we said, this lesson is from all four verses. John 18 and one. When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden into which he entered and his disciples. And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the place, for Jesus oft times resorted thither with his disciples. Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth and said unto them, whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he, and Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them. And as soon as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground. Then asked he them again, whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he. If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way. That the same might be fulfilled which he spake of them, which thou givest me, have I lost none. Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and smoked the priest's servant and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. Then said Jesus unto Peter, put up thy sword into the sheath, the cup which thy father hath given me, shall I not drink it? Then the band and the captain and officers of the Jews took Jesus and bound him and led him away to Annas first, for he was the father-in-law to Caiaphas, which was the high priest that same year. So, get to the right. One here. Yeah, okay. The battle number two, and Peter rose to the Lord's defense. And when you read that, we said, that's the way to go, Peter. That's what to do. You need to defend the Lord. But thing is, that's not what he should have done because Jesus had already told them what was going to happen. So Peter drew out his sword, assaulted the high priest's servant, Malchus, cut off his ear. And as I said, it's good to stand by the Lord. It's good to stand by other Christians, but we need to do it in the right way and in the right time. So we're gonna look at the sword of Peter A, And again, John 18, 10, then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and smote the priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. Now Jesus, of course, always had the welfare of others in mind. That would come first. And Jesus never did anything to his disciples for Peter to do anything like that. He didn't, Jesus did not tell them You need not tell Peter to do that. It was all Peter's idea. And as I said, we might have done the very same thing had we been there, even though Jesus had told us what was going to happen. Peter, of course, was in the flesh like we are. Remember, Peter didn't even have the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. So Peter decided, I'm going to take up for him. So he wanted to help Jesus, but he went outside of what Jesus had taught him. How often do people go outside what the Bible teaches to promote and defend the gospel? You see, when you go outside what the Bible teaches, you're really doing contrary to the Word of God. You're hurting the Word of God instead of helping the Word of God. As disciples, we must follow the teachings of Jesus, the Bible. I mean, we have what God wants us to do. That's the reason we need to read and study the word of God. You cannot rely just on preaching and Sunday school teaching. That is not enough for you to understand what God wants you to do. It requires reading and studying the word of God on your own. So, as Jesus acknowledged that he was the one, and he told him to let his followers go, the terrified disciples, they took off, they took the opportunity and fled. Of course, but Peter again, before he fled, he had one more thing to say, one more thing to do, and that was to defend the Lord all by himself. Now you imagine, there was a mob of people, there were soldiers, there were, Many people with weapons there to get Jesus. They didn't come, it wasn't just Judas and one more, it was a crowd of people. And of course, unless it's one of them, unless Peter had just taken a crash course in Kung Fu and sword fighting, he wasn't gonna be able to do anything, to amount to anything. So he had no way that he could stop them, but yet he made it up his mind that that's what he was going to do. So he took out a sword and took a swing at the servant's head. Now, he probably wasn't trying to cut off his ear, but that's what he got, right? Peter Maynard had never used his sword before, but we need to remember he had a sword. He had the right to carry that sword, and he had that sword. Do you remember back? In the Old Testament, when the Philistines had control of Israel and Israel had no weapons, all they had was wooden weapons. They had no metal weapons. But here, Rome didn't do that. They didn't take all the weapons away. So Peter had a sword and tried, of course, tried to kill the soldier, I'm sure, but he had a bad aim or the soldier, a duck or whatever, Matthew 7, verse 1 says, Judge not that ye be not judged. And Matthew 5, 38 and 39, Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. So it looks like here, and I may have this somewhere down in the lesson here, that Peter had decided to become judge, jury, and executioner. He took it all on his own. But that's not what God wanted him to do. Many times we do things and we want the right results in the end, but we're not using the right means. We're going outside what God has said for us to do and trying to get it done. Some people do it trying to convince somebody to be saved? Well, that's what the word of God is for. If the word of God doesn't convince somebody to be saved, they're not saved. You can't convince them outside without the word of God. Now then, yes, you do have part in it, in presenting the gospel and telling them the gospel, maybe telling them your experience or the experience of somebody else, but you cannot make them get saved. You cannot force them to be saved. And you can't make it as easy as it is, you can't make it too easy. Some people force it and other people say, well, if you just read this prayer right here, If you just read these verses in Romans, you'll be saved. No, that's not right. You have to read and believe and receive. So you have to go according to the Word of God. And the same thing goes with our lives. We have to live them the way that the Word of God tells us to. And one example is that we all heard about, and I don't remember a whole lot about what they taught us in history about the Crusades, but I can tell you this, it was almost all wrong. Yes, they did come from Europe and they went into Muslim territory and fought wars. That's about all really they said. But they did it trying to force Muslims to become Christians. And you can't do it. And so, you say, well, who started? Did the Muslims start it? Or did the, quote, Christians start it? Well, it's pretty bad either way. But you can't force somebody. There's still religion. There's still So-called Christian religion that still tries to do that day. There's Muslim religion that still tries to do that today There's other religions that still try to force somebody to believe what they believe and of course if believing is simply doing stuff you can make somebody do that, but that's not salvation and You can make people come to church. You can make it, so you can make it where they want to come because you give them so much, or you can force them to come, but that's not salvation. Salvation, again, is receiving Christ in your heart. So we need to examine our motives. We need to be doing things for the right reason. Why are we doing what we're doing? Are we doing it for the Lord's sake? Are we doing it to see people saved? And are we following what he says for us to do? Now, we're talking about the sword and Peter. I just thought about this this morning actually. Was Peter left-handed or right-handed? I'm hearing more left. And you'd be right. You think about it. If you had a sword and you're going to cut off somebody's right ear, it would be very difficult to do with your right hand. You're going to cut off. So anyway, I just thought it was interesting. I might be wrong. Like I said, if he knew that Kung Fu stuff, he might have jumped over his head. you know, and cut it off when he was up here, I don't know. But he's probably left-handed. And I can't say anything about left-handed, because our pastor's left-handed, and I'm an associate pastor. So I'm not going to say anything negative about left-handed people. I'm not going there. So then, I didn't say anything negative. I didn't say anything negative. I just said he was probably left-handed. And so, see, the sympathy of Jesus. Luke 22, 51, and Jesus answered and said, suffer ye thus far as he touched the ear and healed him. This is one of the miracles in the Bible that is least said about. He cut the ear off, Jesus healed it. Did he pick the ear back up and put it on? I don't know. Did he just touch it and another one grew? I don't know. But anyway, he walked away with two good ears, right? So Jesus healed it. Isaiah 53 and 7 says, he was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter. Of course, this is talking about Jesus, how he didn't fight back. He didn't fight. He simply told truth and showed love. And then it says, as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. Now, as we had discussed in this class before, that all of y'all are farmers, right? Or not farmers, most of you. So I thought, well, do they even know what shearing a sheep is like? Now, I've never sheared a sheep myself. I've never seen it done in life, So I got some pictures of shearing a sheep. So this first one we're going to show you needs shearing. He's a little beyond where probably prime time to shear a sheep. But now then, if somebody was going to hold you down, or somebody was going to cut your hair the way they wanted to cut, you might put up a fight, right? OK. Most of us has got it. Well, you wouldn't put up too much fight, would you, brother? So they shear it, and I don't know how good you can see this picture, but can you see that lamb or sheep? It's just laying there. And again, that one looks like he's asleep. They're not drugged, they just let him do it. And this one, I guess this is a real sharp knife here. Those are for electric shears, but he's trimming this one up. Now that one does look like he's got his eye on that knife a little bit. He said, all right, now you're getting close. And then they look like this when they get done, all right? And then it grows back out and they do it again. So that's where your wool comes from. I know probably someone here didn't know that. They thought wool comes in a roll, spun, you know, for those people that knit. But it does, but that's where it starts at. So that's the way Jesus was. He was as a lamb before the shears. He just let them take him. It demonstrated at the very beginning He said, well, who are you here for? Well, Jesus of Nazareth. Boom, they just all fall down. So there's no doubt, he could have done whatever he wanted to, but what did he want to do? He wanted to drink the cup that the father had for him. His will was the father's will. Now, Jesus not only refused to fight back, but he actually, again, healed the wounded Marcus. at this stressful time in his life, part of the cup, this was part of the cup which he had talked to the father about, was being taken right here. He always put others before himself. And we have an illustration in the Bible about King David as he was in exile, and we're going to read 2 Samuel 16, 5-14, This is as Absalom was taken over Jerusalem and David was fleeing. Now here again, David didn't find his son. He just let him have it. But 2 Samuel 16, 5, and when David, and when King David came to Barhurim, Behold, thence came out a man of the family of the house of Saul. Now Saul was a Benjamite, the family of Benjamin. And so this man's name, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gerah, he came forth and cursed Steele as he came. And he cast stones at David and all the servants of King David and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. So David was not alone. He had hundreds of mighty men. He had his mighty men that the Bible lists for us, and he had hundreds of others with him. And try to set this picture, they're going along a creek or something. I can't remember if it says in this scripture here exactly where they're at, but he's over on one side, one man. And you got King David with his mighty men, Hundreds of soldiers with him and he's throwing rocks at all of them That's not bravery, that's stupidity But God allowed him to do it and not only did God allow him to do it, David allowed him to do it And thus said Shimeh when he cursed, come out, come out thou bloody man and thou man of Belial. The Lord has returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul in whose stead thou hast reigned. And the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son. And behold, thou art taken in thy mischief because thou art a bloody man. Then said Abishi the son of Zeruah, unto the king, why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head. He wouldn't have missed, he wouldn't have got his ear. He'd have got his head. And the king said, what have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah? So let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, curse David. Who shall then say, wherefore hast thou done so? And David said to Abishi and all his servants, behold my son, which came forth out of my bough, seeketh my life. How much more now may this Benjamite do it? Let him alone, let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him. It may be that the Lord will look on mine affliction and that the Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day. And as David and his men went by the way, Jimmy went along on the hillside over against him and cursed as he went and threw stones at him and cast dust. So David here is taking the outlook that Joseph took upon his brothers. You meant it for bad, but the Lord means it for good. Now here, Israel again is in turmoil. There is a change in the kingdom temporarily. Absalom has won the heart of the people by being a good liberal Democrat. They come in the gate and he says, if I was king, I would give you whatever you want. That's basically what he told them. And they said, wow, I would like to get some of them food stamps that I don't deserve. Now I'm not saying everybody don't deserve food stamps, there's some that do. I would like to get one of them checks that I shouldn't get. And so that's what he's telling me, you know, what's your problem? Oh, I'd take care of that. So he does that for years and he gets a following and pushes out his father from the throne. With enough people behind him, he throws David off the throne and David flees Jerusalem. And David flees Jerusalem. As David flees Jerusalem, this kinsman of Saul begins cursing him and throwing a fit. He is saying that David killed Saul to get the throne. You see that he's talking about being bloody and that it was his fault that Saul died. But remember, he's a Benjamin. Now, if Saul was still king, he'd probably be better off than he is today. So he's mad because his family's not in rule anymore. And also he said, and you kill to get what you want. If David had let Abishai, one of the hundreds of men that David had with him, kill Shimei, Shimei would have appeared to be right, right? He says, you're a bloody man, go kill him. Well, he'd be a bloody man, wouldn't he? But he didn't. He said, let him alone. Let him alone. David chose to leave the matter with the Lord and commanded that Shimei not be harmed. I've said that, Shimei, Shimei, so many ways, I got one of them right. Years later when Shimei begged Solomon for forgiveness. Now this is years later when Solomon is king now, right? And so David had given instruction to Solomon of what to do with him, with Shimei. And get back online here. Years later when Shimei begs Solomon for forgiveness, Solomon basically sentences him to death but puts him on parole under house arrest. He said, you stay here in Jerusalem and you'll live out your life. But he leaves Jerusalem and therefore loses his life. He broke parole and Solomon carried out the sentence of death. When others attack us the way that Shimei was attacking David here, in other words, attacking for no reason, they're not right in what they're saying, they're just out for vengeance or out, they just don't like what's going on and they don't like us or whatever the reason is, are we able to react with kindness and sympathy? Are we able to forbear and resist the temptation to get even? Sometimes, as I said, in David's case, it was no trouble to get even. I mean, when Abishi said, won't you just let me kill him? All I had to do was say, OK. But that wasn't the right thing to do. Just because it's the easy thing to do doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Are we truly following some worthy examples? Christ lived to love the unlovable. And I would say that all of us in here have met people that are unlovable, or at least they're trying to not allow you to love them. They don't want you to like them. They are against you. But that doesn't mean that we're to go against them. It's a very difficult thing to do. It's very difficult. It's easy to get back. It's difficult to follow and do what the Lord said to do. Matthew 5, 43 and 48, And ye have heard it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the children of your father which is in heaven. For he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. Now, let's look at that last verse. The Bible uses very broad terms we can easily understand. Son, evil, good, rain, just, and unjust. None of us would have to go to a dictionary to see what those words mean. Very simple words. Now, here's another easy word, heir. Do we all agree that God gives us the air to breathe and the ability to breathe that air in and to keep our bodies going? That's all from God, right? What about the serial pedophile? Now we would consider him the bad. What about his air? Where does it come from? Who allows him to breathe? Who allows his body to take that air and keep his body going? The same God that gives you air. Let's be honest. If you knew somebody, I mean, you knew that they habitually abuse children in the way that would get them the name pedophile, how hard would it be to cut their air off if you had the ability. You would have to fight not to cut it off. But we're not. We can't take the position of Peter and be the judge, jury, and executioner. All right? Very hard to do. And if we was ever in a situation like that. Now, if you were doing it to save a child, that'd be different. But if you just see somebody you know is bad, you say, I'm just gonna take care of it. That's not the thing to do. It's hard when we know something is wrong, but we're not the one in a position to do something about it. God outlines a way to bring people to justice. That's what our criminal justice system is founded on. I'm not saying our criminal justice system is perfect, but that's what it's founded on. But it does not include our personal wrath. Right? That's the reason why if a murderer goes to trial, and he had murdered a woman, and that woman's husband was a judge, he shouldn't be the judge on that trial. It would be practically impossible for him to be fair. So we don't have, our personal wrath should not cause us to do what we do, but rather we should receive our guidance from God on what to do. When people do us wrong, we don't cut off their ear now, do we? I've never thought they've done me wrong and I'm gonna cut their ear off. I haven't, maybe some of y'all. Maybe y'all don't like ears, I don't know. So they've done us wrong, but how do we treat them? All right? It's hard to treat them just like somebody that does us right, isn't it? That's what Jesus did. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying I always do it. I'm just saying that's what God says to do. How do we speak to them? I've avoided people so I wouldn't say the wrong thing. Now that was better than saying the wrong thing, but it still wasn't the right thing. I should have treated them just like everybody else. For if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans do the same. Now the publicans were the tax collectors, basically thieves, right? And all the publicans loved the other publicans. I'm not saying Republicans, I'm saying publicans, okay? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect even as your father which in heaven is perfect. In other words, follow the example of God and treat everybody the same. Again, I'm not saying it's easy to do. I'm just saying that's what we're supposed to do. It's a difficult thing to do. Acts 1038 says that Jesus went about doing good. And that's what we're supposed to do. Seems like I should be the next one over. Nope, not yet. Y'all can look at that. It would be a wonderful thing if our friends and neighbors saw a pattern of good works in our lives. So what do people that see you on a normal basis People that maybe you work with, you live around, your family, your neighbors. What is their opinion on your life? On your Christian life? So I'm talking about people that know enough about you to form an opinion. What is their opinion? James 2, 14 through 20, What does it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you saying to them, depart in peace, be ye warm and filled, notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say thou hast faith, and I have works, show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? If your faith only affects the people in this building, your faith is dead. It just is. If it's not alive out there, it's not alive in here. It's good to announce your faith, but we need to also be like James and show our faith with good works. All right, we'll pick up there next week with number three, the binding. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this day that you've given us. We thank you, Lord, for all your many blessings. Lord, again, we want to pray for the Brother Hamby, if you're preaching today, Lord, I pray to anoint him, Lord, to give us what we need to hear. And Lord, I pray, Lord, that if there's anyone lost here anywhere today at Currytown, Lord, they hear the word, receive the faith to be saved. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.